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The Safe Drinking Water / Food Law Nexus, Margot J. Pollans
The Safe Drinking Water / Food Law Nexus, Margot J. Pollans
Pace Environmental Law Review
At 2 AM on August 2, 2014, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency issued the following warning to the citizens of Toledo: “Do Not Drink.” The Ohio City's tap water was contaminated with microcystin, a toxin that can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and abnormal liver function. The source was an algal bloom in Lake Erie resulting from high levels of agricultural fertilizers and animal waste. For three days, Toledo residents drank only bottled water.
This is just one of many similar examples of agricultural contamination of urban drinking water supplies. Creating a physical connection between urban and rural communities, this pollution highlights …
Citizen Litigants Citizen Regulators: Four Cases Where Citizen Suits Drove Development Of Clean Water Law, Karl S. Coplan
Citizen Litigants Citizen Regulators: Four Cases Where Citizen Suits Drove Development Of Clean Water Law, Karl S. Coplan
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
One of the key innovations of the 1970s regulatory environmental revolution was the provision for citizen enforcement of regulatory standards. This innovation upset the previous bipolar regulatory model, which was a two-way negotiation between the regulated industries and the (often captive) regulatory agencies. By removing agency enforcement discretion as a means of underenforcing statutory norms, the citizens suit brought a new constituency to the regulatory bargaining table. The citizen suit had the intended effect of implementing a regime of full enforcement of the new environmental norms.
But the revolutionary effect of the newly minted citizen suit was not limited to …